Inkjet recording methods enable simple and inexpensive image production and therefore have been used in a variety of printing fields. Among the inkjet recording methods, a UV-curable inkjet method is known in which droplets of UV-curable inkjet ink are landed to a recording medium and then cured by radiation with ultraviolet rays to form an image. Recently, the UV-curable inkjet method has been attracting attention for its capability of forming images having high rubfastness and adhesiveness even on recording media which lack ink absorbing properties.
However, image forming methods using the UV-curable inkjet systems have the drawback of poor image quality due to failure to prevent combining of neighboring dots, during high-speed recording such as single pass recoding using a line recording head or high speed serial recording. One method of preventing combining of neighboring dots is to add a gelling agent to an UV-curable inkjet ink (see, e.g., PTLS 1 and 2).